Jesse Scheckner
Deputy Chief Assistant State Attorney Alexcia Cox should make easy work of her two opponents for Palm Beach County State Attorney, new polling suggests.
A survey of likely General Election voters in Palm Beach found Cox, a Democrat, leads both foes by double digits.
She holds a 16-percentage-point lead over her closest competitor. That’s higher than the 13-point margin by which President Joe Biden carried the county in 2020.
Democratic consultant Christian Ulvert’s firm, EDGE Communication, polled 1,630 Palm Beach voters online Aug. 26-29. He modeled the poll with a +8 Democratic turnout, with the makeup being 40% Democratic, 32% Republican and 28% no party affiliation (NPA).
The poll had a 2-point margin of error.
Forty-five percent of respondents said they plan to vote for Cox, compared to 29% for Republican lawyer Sam Stern and 23% for no-party lawyer Adam Farkas. A full 23% of voters were still undecided.
The poll also found Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris leads ex-President Donald Trump by 18 points and incumbent Democratic Sheriff Ric Bradshaw is on track to trounce his former second-in-command, Republican Michael Gauger, with a 35-point edge among voters.
“The coalition of voters who are excited to look ahead rather than go backwards have come together and Democrats are well-positioned in the final stretch of the 2024 General Election,” Ulvert said. He added that “Bradshaw and Cox’s leads together highlight how voters continue to trust Democrats on the issues of public safety.”
Cox outpaced two opponents in a Democratic Primary last month with 64% of the vote to clinch her spot on the Nov. 5 General Election ballot. She carries many notable endorsements, including nods from Bradshaw, U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, the Fraternal Order of Police, Palm Beach Clerk Joseph Abruzzo and the person she hopes to succeed, State Attorney Dave Aronberg.
Stern, a former prosecutor, took 63% of the vote against one Republican opponent. Through Aug. 23, he raised about $350,000 toward his State Attorney bid, half of it from his own bank account.
Cox reported raising about $313,000.
The new polling numbers, released Wednesday, track with a survey EDGE commissioned Plantation-based MDW Communications to conduct last month in Miami-Dade that found Harris had a 15-point lead among likely General Election voters.
That survey was similarly encouraging for several other Democrats like Sheriff candidate James Reyes, Clerk candidate Annette Taddeo, Tax Collector David Richardson and Supervisor of Elections candidate J.C. Planas, all of whom were found to hold large leads over their Republican opponents.
Statewide is a different matter. Several recent polls show Trump leading Harris by 4-7 points in Florida, where Republicans now hold a more than 1 million-voter advantage over Democrats.
